A Memoir of Jane Austen

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Changes of Customs
But mortal damsels have long ago discarded the clumsy
implement. First it dropped its iron ring and became a clog;
afterwards it was fined down into the pliant galoshe–– lighter to
wear and more effectual to protect–– a no less manifest instance of
gradual improvement than Cowper indicates when he traces
through eighty lines of poetry his ‘accomplished sofa’ back to the
original three-legged stool.°
As an illustration of the purposes which a patten was intended
to serve, I add the following epigram, written by Jane Austen’s
uncle, Mr. Leigh Perrot, on reading in a newspaper the marriage
of Captain Foote to Miss Patten:––
Through the rough paths of life, with a patten your guard,
May you safely and pleasantly jog;
May the knot never slip, nor the ring press too hard,
Nor the Foot find the Patten a clog.°
At the time when Jane Austen lived at Steventon, a work was
carried on in the neighbouring cottages which ought to be
recorded, because it has long ceased to exist.
Up to the beginning of the present century, poor women found
profitable employment in spinning flax or wool. This was a better
occupation for them than straw plaiting, inasmuch as it was carried
on at the family hearth, and did not admit of gadding and
gossiping about the village. The implement used was a long narrow
machine of wood, raised on legs, furnished at one end with a
large wheel, and at the other with a spindle on which the flax or
wool was loosely wrapped, connected together by a loop of string.
One hand turned the wheel, while the other formed the thread.
The outstretched arms, the advanced foot, the sway of the whole
figure backwards and forwards, produced picturesque attitudes,
and displayed whatever of grace or beauty the work-woman
might possess. 1 Some ladies were fond of spinning, but they
worked in a quieter manner, sitting at a neat little machine of
varnished wood, like Tunbridge ware,° generally turned by the
foot, with a basin of water at hand to supply the moisture
1 Mrs. Gaskell, in her tale of ‘Sylvia’s Lovers,’ declares that this hand-spinning
rivalled harp-playing in its gracefulness. [Sylvia’s Lovers (1863), Ch. 4.]
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